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[simonsebastien]

Dramaturgy in Video-games: What we learn from games, a study

In a TED talk given in 2010, author and game designer, Jane McGonigal, discusses the ways in which video- games can act as a transformative agent in our daily lives. Rather than solely framing video- games as isolated, private experiences designed to escape from the challenges and rigor of reality, McGonigal claims that by examining the lessons learned through gameplay centered on teamwork specifically, one can map out new modes of collaborative engagement. In doing so, McGonigal believes that video- games can serve as an untapped resource that will allow for a means of developing creative, cooperative solutions to the major challenges faced by the individual and society at large (McGonigal, 2010). McGonigal presents four major lessons facilitated by engaging in collaboration within video-games, specifically the ideas of ‘Urgent Optimism,’ ‘Social Fabric,’ ‘Blissful Productivity’ and ‘Epic Meaning.’ While McGonigal frames these four concepts as the critical aspect of video- games, this paper will focus on a framework raised by McGonigal as tangential to these four lessons, specifically the idea of ‘collateral learning .’ In the context of this paper, ‘collateral learning’ will be used to refer to the lessons, values and arguments that take place as a direct result of engaging with video- games that may or may not align with the intentions of the author or the primary focus of the game itself. Where McGonigal focuses on the collaborative potential of video- games, this paper will emphasize the role of the individual player within video-games. Through an analysis of 11 bit studios’ ‘Frostpunk’ and Delve Interactive’s ‘Change,’ this paper will explore the ways in which collateral learning is transmitted through gameplay centered on the individual. In doing so, this essay will highlight the moral and ethical lessons embedded within the collateral learning of video- games centered on the individual and how they might distinguish from the four major lessons McGonigal highlights within collaboratively structured video games. Before beginning an examination of the games central to this paper, a mapping out of key terms is necessary in order to establish a framework of analysis. In her essay ‘Dramaturgy and the Immersive theatre experience,’ Catherine Bouko explains how immersive theatre plays “exploit first- person dramaturgy” to achieve “internal- exploratory interactivity,” (P. 462, Bouko). ‘Dramaturgy’ in this paper will refer to Klaus Jantke’s definition of dramaturgy as “the design of emotional experience” (P. 370, Jantke). A “first-person dramaturgy” is thus the designing of an emotional experience centered on a single individual, and is critical in order to understand the ways that collateral learning might function specifically within a “first- person dramaturgy” rather than a more collaborative structure of dramaturgy, which central to McGonigal’s four major lessons of video-games. Secondly, the idea of “internal- exploratory interactivity” is the means by which a first person dramaturgy is able to transport the player to a deeper level of investment and immersion within the confines of the game, by blurring “the boundaries of game and fiction while simultaneously subverting the subjective, uncritical behavior and attitudes exhibited by readers/ players” (P. 463, Jantke). Internal- exploratory interactivity is thus the primary means that first person dramaturgies are capable of producing a deeper level of player investment and immersion within a game. The positionality and agency of the player is aligned with the principal character or avatar of the game, which elicits an equating of player subjectivity with gameplay. Unfolding the layers of subjectivity within a first person dramaturgy will allow for a deeper understanding as to how games use player experience and immersion in order to enable collateral learning. Through an analysis of Delve Interactive’s ‘Change,’ this paper will demonstrate how a first- person dramaturgy within video games can force players to confront 2 incognizant biases and attitudes to social and political issues through an intentional structuring of player immersion. The primary focus of Delve Interactive’s ‘Change’ is providing ‘an emotional homeless survival experience.’ Framed as an individual game experience, a first- person dramaturgy, players take on the role of a homeless person and are tasked with ensuring their survival within the day- night cycle of a city of randomly generated non- player characters (NPC’s) and environments. Within the city, players can engage with NPC’s by begging, stealing and gathering recyclable materials to exchange for money. Rather than solely framing survival as an escape from poverty, players are also tasked with managing their ‘happiness meter,’ which is affected by a host of variables within the game, such as hygiene and NPC interaction. Framing survival in Change as not just as a matter of economic but also intrapersonal and interpersonal development and care ostensibly aligns player subjectivity and choice with the emotional and mental well-being of their character. This framing of survival invites a deeper level of investment and immersion on behalf of the player. As a result, actions within the game which may have been judged as inherently despicable, such as stealing, gain new significance when equated with maintaining a level of interior well- being. Players are thus confronted with their own positionality in direct correlation to their character, which assists in raising the stakes of their exploration and interaction within the game, thereby deepening player immersion. Rather than using immersion within the game as a way to practice ‘urgent optimism,’ an idea that McGonigal describes as “the desire to act immediately to solve a problem with a reasonable chance of success,” players are forced to deal with the meaning embedded with each action of their character that is arguably outside of their lived experience. Change uses a player’s desire to take action to resolve problems as a way of to display the blinding effect of privilege. Action is directly aligned with context thus allowing for a collateral learning of gameplay as not solely 3 defined by a drive for success but also a call to reflect on the merits of socio-economic specificity in choice-making. While Change functions as an immersive simulator that directly maps player experience with the actions and survival of a single character, 11 Bit Studios’ game Frostpunk maps player choice with the actions and survival of an entire simulated city. Players take on the role of the leader of a group of survivors seeking shelter from widespread environmental collapse. Within the safe haven carved out at the start of the game, players are responsible for assigning members of the city various tasks to ensure their survival each day of the day-night cycle, whilst dealing with the perpetual onslaught of cold and its effects on the the survivors. These tasks primarily consist in the gathering of various resources, such as wood, coal, food or steel. Resources are then used to further develop the city, to provide shelter for its inhabitants, streamline resource gathering or researching improvements to the various ways the city functions. Additionally, development of the city is informed by a series of laws that players can pass once during a twenty- four hour cycle. These laws further expand the developmental options of the city, by allowing the construction of new buildings or mechanics that can further the aid the survival of the city and its inhabitants. Similar to Change, survival is not solely based on the player’s ability to manage resources effectively to facilitate the industrial development of that city but also the balancing of the levels of ‘hope’ and ‘discontent,’ of its inhabitants. The ongoing struggles with the environment necessitate player’s responding to various crises faced by the survivors, such as workers becoming sick due to the cold or reacting harshly to laws and decisions passed by the player. While Change elicits a collateral learning of player positionality in relation to that of an external character, Frostpunk confronts the player with their own system of values and morality, within a framework where survival is dependent on effective collaboration with an environment. 4 McGonigal’s remaining three lessons offered by video-games provide a useful framework as to how first- person dramaturgy in Frostpunk might subvert player choice as an inherently beneficial factor within a game. McGonigal lays out Social Fabric, Blissful Productivity and Epic Meaning as the final three important lessons learned by cooperative gameplay. While each can stand on its own as a mode of analysis, the interdependent nature of Frostrupunk’s various mechanics invites a consideration of these three lessons in relation to another rather than separately. Firstly, McGonigal argues that games create a Social Fabric that invites trust, a respect for rules and cooperation. She goes on to explain how games offer a Blissful Productivity, whereby gamers are happier working harder. Finally, she celebrates the potential for games to provide players with Epic Meaning, by offering awe-inspiring missions and knowledge. Frostpunk undoubtedly invites players to take on an ‘epic’ task, that of ensuring the survival of a city and its inhabitants amidst disaster. Furthermore, as stated previously, survival is not undertaken as a solitary endeavour, but by working directly with the city’s inhabitants in order to facilitate this goal. While the game is constructed with a first- person dramaturgy, the game, through its hope and discontent mechanic, requires players to consider how they construct a Social Fabric with the city’s inhabitants in order to meet the game’s primary goal of survival. However, the perpetual onslaught of cold and limited resources in the game means that the way Social Fabric is managed often conflicts with the idea of Blissful Productivity. Oftentimes, the game will force you to decide whether survival is more important that the inhabitants satisfaction and force the player to take steps to justify their actions, regardless of how they might be perceived by the inhabitants. As a result, inhabitants, and the player themselves, may not always find themselves happier when working together or even inspired by their mission to survive and gain Epic Meaning. The game thus structures a consideration by the player as to the merits of cooperation versus authoritarian leadership. In framing survival as 5 a managing of a city and its inhabitants, players are confronted with their agency as a player, in terms of whether they value the success of their own goal at all costs or working within a system of cooperation offered by the game. The game thus flips McGonigal’s lessons, and faces the player’s with their values in terms the importance of the individual in relation to a group, even where that group is constructed. Cooperation is thus not simply framed as inherently beneficial, given that it may not be received with gratitude by the game or as an important factor by the player. The collateral learning of Frostpunk thus asks players to consider the very nature of collaboration and the steps needed to enact it in terms of managing the investments and satisfaction of all parties. While McGonigal argues for the merits of gaming as a force of improvement, the role of the individual player in Change and Frostpunk forces a consideration as to how one might consider improvement when operating outside of a system of cooperation. Many games operate as solitary experiences and forcing players to confront their own subjectivity and approach to collaboration will allow a deeper understanding as to how steps towards effective cooperation can be carried out. In doing so, one might see the potential of games as a site to not only rehearse systems of collaboration but also as a space to consider one’s position within larger social systems and how to go about making meaningful choices in relation to others. 6 Works Cited: 11 Bit Studios. Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios, 2018. Computer Software. Bouko, Catherine, Romanska, Magda. The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. ”Dramaturgy and the immersive theatre experience,” Routledge, 2016. Delve Interactive. Change, Delve Interactive, 2017. Computer Software. Jantke, Klaus, Romanska, Magda. The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. ”Dramaturgical design of the narrative in digital games,” Routledge, 2016. McGonigal, Jane. “Gaming Can Make a Better World.” TED, TED2010, Feb. 2010, www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world?language=en. 7

[simonsebastien]

Downtown Theatre Response Paper #5- ‘Peter Brook, Battlefield’

     ‘A man walks across an empty space and I call it a bare stage,’ (P. 11, Brook). With these words British director and theatre maker, Peter Brook, presents a unique aesthetic lens with which to view and interrogate theatrical practices in the hopes of revitalizing the role of theatre in society. Brooks opening statements invite a means of viewing and formulating theatrical practice that is pared down and stripped away of cultural convention, preconceived notions or expectation and notions of commercial success or cultural capital. However, as Kenyan Critic, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o argues in his essay ‘Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Spaces’, in direct response to Brook’s opening sentence in The Empty Space, our performance spaces are never empty, never truly pared down of meaning—rather they exist as centers for the interplay of external social and political relations, as well as areas whose existence are directly shaped, negotiated and authored by prevailing social and political forces, (P. 12-13,Wa Thiong’o, 1996). To assume, as Brook argues, that an empty space is truly bare or devoid of meaning, is to thus divorce theatrical practice from its political context, and the conditions which give rise to its existence, as evidenced, I would argue, in Brooks’ production of ‘Battlefield,’ adapted from the Indian epic, ‘The Mahabharata.’

          ‘Battlefield’s’ most compelling, and indeed most living features, were both the manner in which it synthesized Brooks opening statement in practice and the conscious inclusion of an ethnically diverse cast. Brooks’ piece portrayed a minimalist setting, consisting of a stage strewn with strips of bamboo, a single drum and chair, a black box and pieces of cloth in various colours. The actors themselves were clothed in simple black attire, harkening to some type of Indian dress, and employed both the strips of cloth and pieces of bamboo to conjure various characters, locations and objects. The cast, consisting of four actors and one musician, employed the use of objects, language and physicality to portray a vast array of characters, animals and stories, all of which placed the spectator directly within the frame of the performance by allowing one’s imagination to fill in the spaces between conjured by metaphor and imagery. The simple act of story-telling, the driving force of the piece, allowed the creation of an event in which actor and audience were at once direct authors and facilitators of the piece- for a story to exist, one must bear witness, to bear witness requires an event upon which one can place one’s attention. Furthermore, in emptying the stage of extravagance and excess, one was able to focus on the events and stories portrayed onstage rather than evoking wild, false or distracting associations around the cultural context and expectations inherent to the narrative.

         What is most striking about this piece is the way in which it is at once capable of exemplifying Brooks’ opening remarks and his concept of deadliness. Brook refers to the idea of deadliness in the sense that, ‘When we say deadly, we never mean dead: we mean something depressingly active but for this very reason capable of change,’ (P. 45, Brook). ‘Battlefields’’ single most deceiving feature is the way in which both the stories and their tradition are carefully appropriated, reframed and removed from their context, and hidden in plain sight for the viewer behind a carefully woven narrative told by a diverse cast of actors. As argued by Thiong’o, spaces are never truly neutral, never devoid of meaning, and one cannot help but marvel at the manner in which these stories, a key tradition of another culture have become translated to a foreign space to be told to an audience likely ignorant of their history and context. Implicit in this piece, devoid I would argue of any political lens, save for the diversity of its cast, it the idea that one can spend time in another country learning of a set of traditions or stories, then adapt these stories to one’s own ends without referencing or acknowledging the traditions and context within which they developed. Navigating spaces of cultural exchange are never easy but for one to assume that this idea of sharing stories, of stripping the stage to an empty space, is in itself a neutral act is to mislead oneself and one’s audience into a kind of deadliness that seeks to erode the political and social consciousness of the individual.

Works Cited: Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Antheneum, 1968. Print.

Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. “Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space.” Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams (1998): 37-70. Web.

[simonsebastien]

Downtown Theatre Response Paper #4- ‘Pandemonium’

          In a more traditional model of producing theatre, the creative process is largely driven by the director—actors, sound designers, producers, costume designers are in some ways tools that the director employs in order to realize their vision on stage, as opposed to creative collaborators and co-authors of the piece. Furthermore, the director is, in most cases, usually invested in realizing the playwright’s intentions onstage as authentically as possible, privileging the position of the text above all else within the creative process. The concept of ‘devised’ theatre emerged in some ways as a response to this typically authoritative, linear approach to creative work and tends to refer to a method of artistic work that is more collaborative, open ended and process oriented. That is to say that where a more traditional model of creating theatre tends to focus on the final theatrical piece or product, a so- called ‘devised’ work, focuses more on the actual process of creating work and how that process can be best used as a space of collaboration between various artistic disciplines and fields, rather than positioning one within a space of privilege over the others. However, if one were to focus on the defining feature of ‘devised’ theatre as a process driven mode of creating work, we find that, aside from the way it is described, there is no real difference between a so- called devised piece and a staged play—it has merely emerged as a term to describe live performances that do not adhere to the strict categories of a traditional play, dance or musical piece. ‘Devised’ theatre has merely become a means of separating modes of live performance that blur artistic forms and mediums despite the fact that one can argue all artistic work is devised, in the sense that every artistic work has a specific process and approach according to the needs and givens of a particular project. For the sake of this argument, I shall use ‘devised’ theatre to refer to live performances that blur various artistic forms and fields in order to highlight some the ways this kind of work is distinguished from more traditional staged plays.

           One compares a ‘devised’ work, such as a Pandemonium, with a so- called more traditional written play, such as Caught, three distinctive features are noticed: the presence and use of technology, the presence of a textual character- driven narrative and the use of other artistic forms such as dance and music. While Caught can be defined as a more experimental work owing to the ways in which it used meta-theatricality to both disrupt the flow of a linear plot and shift the roles played by actors, it ultimately remains, albeit disjunctive, a character driven narrative, entirely based upon the text of the play. The presence of the gallery and brief clips of the installation, are removed once the narrative of the piece begins with Lin Bo’s monologue in the first act, focusing primarily on the realization of the text of the play on stage through actors. Were one to then compare this work with Pandemonium, a ‘devised’ piece, one cannot help but highlight the influence and use of technology within the piece, the presence of other artistic disciplines, such as dance and live music, and the absence of a character- based narrative driven by text or language. Pandemonium featured three performers, two of which acted as dancers and movers and one of whom functioned as a musician within the piece. Two cameras placed in the upstage corners of the performance space produced both pre-recorded media as well as a live, often altered, image of the events onstage onto a large screen placed upstage center, as well as pre-recorded media. The piece was devoid of narrative in the sense of a cohesive, unified plot and instead featured a sequence of events onstage created by the performers. Whereas Caught can be described based on the structure and content of the four scenes of which the show consists, Pandemonium instead features a series of tasks carried out by the performers, without completely without the use of spoken language, save for the lyrics of songs sung by the musician. The show can thus easily be described moment to moment according to what is actually taking place onstage, be it a dance between performance, a mock close up with cameras, standing to pour a drink, placing the objects onstage into a pile or simply sitting at a table in complete stillness. On the other hand Caught, due to the presence of text and characters, can be defined based on the flow of narrative throughout the piece, privileging the position of the actor within this piece. Furthermore, the use of technology and music within Pandemonium created a visual and aural landscape that lent itself to a more visceral, sensorial emotional experience rather than one strictly limited to the empathetic connection between the audience and character, as in the case of Caught, even if in this instance, this connection was disrupted due the structuring of the piece and the inconsistency of characters between scenes.

          ‘Devised’ work is an effort to describe a body of work that exists outside of a traditional model of a written play and blurs artistic boundaries, in order to distinguish these kinds of performances from a more traditional view of theatre and written plays. As stated previously, the process of creating work remains unique to each project and this mode of defining creative work ultimately continues to privilege the work of the director, playwright and actor over other artistic fields and disciplines. It is possible to conceive of work that is completely collaborative and remains at the end a character driven narrative or a directorial process focused on text that excludes a cohesive plot or narrative. No singular approach to creating work can completely define all artistic work within theatre. While it may be useful to conceive of work as a finished product authored according to the vision of a single artist in the context of a culture driven by consumerism and capitalism, alternative modes of creating work that invite a more collaborative blurring between artistic fields allows for a more democratic, inclusive and participatory experience as well as the interplay of various experiences and modes of thinking.

[simonsebastien]

Dowtown Theatre Response #3 “Caught”

          We each have our givens— the aspects of our lives that together constitute our identity or affect how we are identified by others as belonging to a specific community or group, such as race, religion, sexuality and gender. These givens also include the prescribed norms and expectations, shaped by our environment and context that govern the ways in which we interact and perceive the world around us. Together, our givens allow us the means with which we frame and narrate ourselves as individuals within the social ordering and help us to create and maintain some sense of coherence in our lives. Just as our givens offer us a sense of balance and consistency, givens themselves may become viewed as fixed or rigid rather than constructs shaped by our particular socio-political context, which we take on either consciously or unconsciously. We hold onto our givens as they provide us with a sense of truth—a means through which we are able to order our own realities and everyday lives. Despite an awareness of the degree of purchase and influence they possess over lives, to dispense with the givens, the constructed norms and beliefs that surround our existence, would be to abandon any sense of meaning or logic; the very way in which we are able to center ourselves coherently as individuals in the social ordering. Christopher Chen’s ‘Caught’ offers a brief glimpse of a world in which the givens we possess are up for grabs—a world in which truth is entirely subjective, fluid and ever- changing, rather than conforming to a strict cultural belief system or set of expectations.

          The genesis of the Play Company’s production of ‘Caught’ is centered on the story of Mike Daisey—a monologist who utilized research that he conducted on labor conditions in China in order to construct a theatrical piece, which was then represented as journalistic truth on ‘This American Life.’ Daisey’s piece was eventually revealed as fiction on ‘This American Life,’ and the show on his performance was later removed. While ‘Caught’ directly references Daisey’s story in its second act, the Daisey story is embedded within the entire structure of the piece. Beginning with a gallery exhibit of an installation created by an artist who is later revealed to be a character within the play, the performance progresses in a series of four scenes. The piece begins with a mock presentation, by the supposed author of the installations exhibited, and is followed by a realist scene in which the previous scene is revealed to be a work of fiction. The third scene, a mock interview between two of the supposed collaborators of the piece, is revealed to be two a circular dialogue between two more characters of the play. The final scene portrays a realist discussion between two actors, playing themselves as actors about their shared relationship with a Chinese artist, whose relationship to the two is revealed to be duplicitous. The overall effect by the end, as two actors came forward to thank the audience for their time, I was unable to fully distinguish between the actual ending of the piece and yet another layer of performance unveiling before me. Though structured cohesively as a series of inter-connected, isolated scene, my narrative understanding of the piece was disrupted between by the preceding scene, rather than continued. Each scene, through the revelation of new information, alienated me further from the world of the play, drawing awareness to the nature of the play as artifice. The double effect of both delving further into the rabbit hole of the play world whilst simultaneously alienated from the events on stage was such that I was required to lean into the present moment of the events on stage rather than rely solely on the progression of a solely unified, continuous narrative. What was presented and accepted as truth within the world of the play was based entirely on my frame of reference, a frame which changed and shifted rather than remaining focused and continuous. Truth in the world of the piece, as with Daisey, was entirely subjective and completely unreliable. Narrative confusion was juxtaposed within a cohesive structure of scenes, thus showing that even in a state of supposed chaos and disorder, new givens inevitable permeate our frame of reference to provide some small sense of order. Whether true chaos is ever able to truly exist is questionable but what seems inevitable is the way in which we choose and crave for our givens even as we are increasingly hyper- aware of their constructed nature profound effect upon our lives.

[simonsebastien]

Downtown Theatre Response #2 “The Keeper”

          Our entire existence is a mediated by the use and interaction of physical objects—phones, computers, cutlery, clothing, tables, billboards, books, these are just some of the things we engage with almost daily. The rise of a capitalist society has constructed a system of exchange based upon the value or monetary worth of specific objects over others, as determined by their utility or importance to daily life. Our society has now created a system in which the hierarchy of certain types of goods or objects is deemed ‘valuable’ according to both the level of labour with which they are inscribed and its perceived importance to our lives within a culture of consumerism. Objects are themselves physically meaningless—they become imbued with meaning based on the manner of their production and arbitrarily determined use value within a consumerist culture. This system of value has become a growing presence in the realm of art where specific objects or works of art are deemed to be more valuable than others according to, among other factors, the level of cultural capital ascribed to a particular artist by society. This in turn places the works of the artist as a creator of products to be bought and sold within the capitalist model, as per their social meaning or importance as opposed to their perceived use value. Where art blurs with life in this regard is the ways in which art reveals that objects supposedly deemed to be inferior, or without use value or cultural currency, can adopt a talismanic or fetishized quality according to the owner or framework within which they exist.  Objects though innocuous and inanimate hold histories, reveal stories and carry a connection from the moment of its production or assembly to the immediate presence of its interaction in our daily lives. ‘The Keeper’ offers a view of the objects surrounding us, the objects of our daily lives and raises questions of what is deemed to be worth preserving, what objects can allow us a direct glimpse of the past based on their surrounding social context in which they were produced and how we as human beings possess an almost possessive need in some cases to preserve, however temporarily the passing of our existence by placing them onto the objects surrounding us.  

                 ‘The Keeper’ offers an array of physical, and in some cases digital objects, ranging from works created by practicing artists to randomized collections assembled by an individual, places each of them within the landscape of a gallery and thus equally frames them as works of art. Perhaps the most important aspect of this exhibition is the way in which the question of framing allows a seemingly meaningless, inanimate object to adopt sense of life and history according to the historical or social lens placed upon it. German artist Ydessa Hendeles’  ‘Partners (The Teddy Bear Project),’ is an installation consisting of several thousand photographs and physical teddy bears arranged in a neat, softly lit display. The installation is organized according to the myriad of uses and meanings ascribed to these objects dating back to the middle of the twentieth century. These include the teddy bear’s status as “political mascot, emblem of class status, embodiment of commercial success, protector of childhood innocence, adult comforter in a harsh universe.[1]” The objects themselves, are framed in an intimate setting displayed by both the nature of the lighting within the space, as well as the myriad of images of children and supposed owners of these teddy bears. Rather than affording a sense of uniformity or sameness to the teddy bears displayed, each physical or photographic display adopted a more personal or unique aspect according to the reference surrounding the image. The lighting of the area was soft and evoked shadows within the room, creating a sense of intimacy and privacy within the space. The intimate setting, combined with the unique frame of reference attached to each object in the form of a description or image of an individual ascribed a sense of importance and personal value to each one.  The objects themselves, which remain unchanged save for the manner in which they are encountered by the viewer, are thus able to adopt a sense of liveness and uniqueness in relation the viewer, as opposed to presenting a mass produced good of consumerist culture. Furthermore by placing each object within a particular historical moment or landscape, time took on a more fluid nature, allowing the viewer a sense of transportation to the prevailing moment of each display. This in turn presented view of how objects, specifically the teddy bear develops as a product of consumerist culture, is imbued with meaning by the owner and the ways in which that meaning is captured, preserved and displayed in the present through framing within an artistic landscape.

                 Objects remain inanimate, lifeless and are changed by the context and manner in which they are experienced or encountered. What is determined as artistic as opposed to quotidian depends purely on the frame of reference and ways in which they are ascribed with meaning, becoming in some ways a distinctive extension or representation of ourselves.

[1] Cotter, Holland. “ ‘The Keeper’ Reveals the Passion for Collecting. “www.nytimes.com. N.p., 21 July 2016. Web. 19 Sept. 2016.

[simonsebastien]

Downtown Theatre Response #1- ‘Brace Up,’ The Wooster Group

Set outside an unnamed town in an unnamed province of rural Russia, Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” highlights the inner suffering of the individual brought upon by the unfulfilled life. The first act reveals that the three sisters of the Prozorov family, Olga, Masha and Irina, lament their so- called ‘debased sublime life,’ a life blessed with privilege but one that nevertheless fails to afford the sisters with a sense of purpose or satisfaction and who each yearns to return to the city of Moscow. Chekhov’s text conveys a world in which cultural convention and prevailing social forces have subsumed the agency of the individual. Rather than portraying characters that conform wholly to the social roles prescribed to them by the situation, the play presents an array of complex emotional beings with conflicting and sometimes contradictory emotions and desires. Masha has grown bored and annoyed by the socialite lifestyle foisted upon her by her husband, Kulygin, a teacher and his academic circles; Olga has become increasingly stressed by her position as headmistress at a local school and longs to be married; and Irina has found herself dejected by the day to day routine of a woman of her social standing and longs to take up some form of labour in order to afford herself a sense of productivity within the family. The language of the play offers a rich view of the emotional inner life of the individual while leaving space for the existence of subtext and unspoken desire. Frustrated longing, nostalgia, resentment, regret, resignation, jaded optimism and cynicism all exist together in the play’s myriad of characters who are each full formed autonomous subjects in and of themselves capable of agency rather than strictly archetypical figures conforming or representing the prevailing social hierarchy.

           Chekhov’s text, though applicable to our contemporary moment remains a classical text representative of a particular historical moment. Furthermore, the play’s text engenders a sense of identification with its characters, blurring the boundaries between the real and the fictional, affording a sense of importance and value to the emotional landscape of the individual. In perhaps an effort to restore the play to our present moment, unburdened by the weight of classicism, The Wooster Group’s adaptation of the play, “Brace Up,” offers a dynamic sonic and visual theatrical experience as opposed to a purely realist production as is customary with the play. Unlike the realist setting fostered by the play’s text, “Brace Up” employs a diverse use of technology, primarily in the form of microphones and television screens as well as an original soundscape and bold lighting techniques. The majority of the play’s spoken dialogue is communicated through the microphone or mediated via television screen, undercutting the emotional impact of the natural voice upon the audience. Actors exist alongside their character rather than fully embodying their roles, further disrupting the audience’s ability to self- identify emotionally. Actor Kate Valk for instance, plays both the part of Masha and narrator, introducing her fellow actors, commenting upon the events on stage and offering her microphone to other actors such as Irina, the youngest sister who is played by an obviously elderly woman. Characters such as Olga, Chebutykin and Tuzenbach exist primarily through facial close- ups displayed on television screens on-stage. In particular, the character of Solyony takes the form of disembodied voice accompanied by a series of rapidly changing images on a television screen, whose dialogue was always preceded by a loud sound. Furthermore, the tempo of the spoken language varied drastically according to character. Lines delivered as Masha by Kate Valk were always rapidly spoken, often in a matter of fact tone, while Willem Defoe’s Vershinin spoke for the most part spoke quite slowly, accompanied by slow music and soft lighting, before transitioning at various points to quickly delivered lines of text.

           The Wooster Groups production of “Brace Up” breaks from realist tradition favoured by Chekhov’s plays in order to follow a more Brechtian approach of theatrical production. The show both underscores the emotional impact of the text while constantly preventing the audience from fully identifying with the play’s characters. The play’s rich emotional life, rather than being purely represented by the empathetic connection of the actor, was conveyed to the audience through the sonic soundscape employed by the piece or drastic shifts in the tempo of speech between characters. The best examples of the former occurred during Irina’s opening of her gift from Chebutykin, during which a mass of noise was heard onstage, heightening the value and importance of that moment to the character without obvious emotionality on the part of the actor. The production constantly sought to maintain that awareness of the artifice of the performance in the audience, employing alienation as a means of allowing audiences to engage with aspects of the text through a unique or fresh lens, rather than solely dwelling on the sentimentality of the play. Although the final production appeared in practice to be in drastic opposition to the themes and aims of Chekhov’s play, highlighting the emotional inner life of the individual and the ways in which social forces act upon our lives, the show nevertheless reveals the ways in which prevailing social forces, whether technological or familial, often influence and mediate our own emotional life and social interactions today. The cultural capital and significance of Chekhov’s play is ever present in the production but does not burden the theatrical experience of the show. Rather a dialectical relationship is established between the theatrical landscape of the present and the emotional landscape of the text, allowing the two to speak and inform each other and fostering a deeper understanding as how the play operates in our own contemporary moment.

[simonsebastien]

Mujeres Cabalgando en la Arena: Laboratorio Experimental de los Textos de Federico García Lorca (Women Riding in the Sand: Experimental Laboratory based on the texts of Federico García Lorca)

         I have put off writing this post for many reasons, the primary one being that I dislike speaking ill of others where possible, at least where it can be directly attributed to me, particularly those who have had an impact on my growth and development as an artist. Secondly, I struggle with good analytical writing and am often afraid to allow myself to engage in the process of confronting complex issues. I am quick to assume that my thoughts or feelings towards a particular issue or debate are inadequate, clumsy and thus not worth stating. However, for theatre to develop, it requires criticism, and good criticism requires grace, bravery and honesty wherever possible, otherwise the theatre runs the risk of becoming proud, dangerously self- assured and ultimately stagnant. Therefore, I feel as though I bear a responsibility to put aside my own fears and self- doubt to process what I have experienced this past semester, beginning with the student production. I will apologize for the way in which my thoughts flow and develop, and will do my best to remain concise and direct. As an experiment in writing, I ask that you consider what follows simultaneously a critical piece of writing, as well as a jeremiad of sorts. Rather than simply a lament or list of complaints, I will attempt to address my misgivings with the process of the student production in a rigorous and critical minded fashion, along with the passion and stubbornness I have stifled this past semester.

           I will begin therefore by stating, what for me, is the obvious. During the spring 2016 semester of my sophomore year at NYUAD, I had the opportunity to work on the student production “Mujeres Cabalgando en la Arena: Laboratorio Experimental de los Textos de Federico García Lorca” directed by Chilean director Carlos Díaz León of DUOC university, a project which I unequivocally consider, sexist, biased and entirely lacking in any critical understanding or foundation with regards to issues of gender, sexuality, race or identity. I will save my critique of the final project for a future post, as I wish to focus on other elements of the production, specifically, Carlos’ process. 

          I had worked with Carlos once before during the fall 2015 Global Shakespeare Student Festival, at a time when I was still uncertain about acting and studying theatre in general. I suppose that it was partially my work with Carlos which reignited my passion for acting, a passion I had discovered in Catherine Coray’s Fundamentals of Acting class and which had begun to fade after I choose to drop out of the fall 2015 student production of “Organs, Tissues and Candy- Games” directed by Lebanese theatre company, Zoukak, after sustaining a neck injury, through my own fault. It was Carlo’s work specifically, I must admit, that allowed me to return to Trinidad that summer, eager to continue learning and training in the craft of acting. I thus looked forward with a great deal of excitement, and no small share of anxiety at the chance to work with Carlos once again. Upon hearing what was to be the subject of the coming semester’s production, an experimental laboratory based on the texts of Lorca, my mind and imagination were instantly sparked to life at the myriad of potential possibilities. I suppose my own engagements with both Rubén Polendo, and by extension his company Theater Mitu, and Debra Levine, in their Making Theater and Thinking Theater courses respectively, had provided me with a very specific understanding, or perhaps opinion, of what “an experimental laboratory” was to be. I admit that both terms remain slightly vague to me, partially due perhaps my own ignorance, partially due to the ways in which they are described in the world of theatre. 

          I will thus attempt to clarify my own understanding of the terms for the sake of this post. For my own part, in the context of theatre, the word ‘experimental’ will refer to a unique way of conceiving and making work. By extension, “a laboratory” is space that facilitates the investigation and creation of work, through the development and articulation of a process suited to the specific needs or requirements of a particular project. “ For me, what was to be essential to this particular production was not the final piece itself, but the overall process of investigating issues and questions on sexuality, “gender, love and desire.” Despite my misgivings with final production itself, as I have stated earlier, I will focus, for the sake of this post, upon the process in which Carlos developed this work, as this was perhaps my greatest source of disappointment, frustration and some measure of betrayal on my part. Where I am sure that these were not Carlos’ intention or desire for the finished project, I nevertheless firmly believe they were inevitable given the manner in which we approached this particular project. I say ‘we’, as I do not wish to remove or negate the responsibility I believe we all as actors, share in the direction this production developed. Furthermore, I do not wish to simply use this writing as a space to blame or otherwise undermine the respect I have towards Carlos and the work he develops. However, as the lead artist, Carlos was responsible for not only the development of this project, but also mapping out what was to be our experience of its development. This analysis is thus not meant solely to be some manner of emotional and intellectual catharsis but also a means of articulating for myself the pitfalls of this particular process so as to assure a greater level of awareness and care when mapping out my own process for developing work, both as a lead artist and collaborator. 

          When we were first introduced to Carlos during the audition process, I was reminded what it was about his approach to acting that drew me in so much initially. Carlos as both an actor and a director, is adamant in his belief in employing the entirety of the actor’s body as a mode of expression and for this reason believes in preparing the body physically for artistic expression and work. The warm-up we engaged harkened back to circuit training I would partake in during my days as a national water- polo athlete, both of which were intended to both allow a greater awareness physically of the body but also to improve overall endurance and a capacity to support intense physical work. Where my former coach intended such physical training as preparation for the sport of water- polo, Carlos was intent on preparing the body physically as a means of both revealing and supporting intense emotional work as actors. Earlier, I mentioned that I believe we as actors had to share in the responsibility for the direction in which the process of creating the production developed. I use the word ‘actor’ rather than ‘collaborator’ as I believe that is what we truly were to Carlos first and foremost. We were meant to represent Carlos’ vision onstage through the physicality of our bodies and richness of our emotions, and this is what Carlos sough to assess during the audition process. I clarify this for my own sake as I believe this was not something I realized at the time of the audition itself, and subsequently during the process of developing the production. 

          The final part of the audition was to create small treatments employing fragments of Lorca’s texts. I had never before encountered Lorca’s plays, and found myself intrigued by the themes of the moments Carlos had selected as our source material. The creation exercise we participated resonated with me personally as it reminded me of similar creation exercises I had engaged during my time at the NYUAD theatre program, be it during Rubén’s Making Theater course, Theater Mitu’s Japan Intensive or creation exercises I took part in during workshops or other courses. For my own part, I incorrectly assumed that this exercise was to be a model for the creation of the production itself that is, to employ the texts of Lorca as a source of inspiration to begin examining the questions highlighted by either us as collaborators or Carlos himself. Following the callback process, when we then began our first week of rehearsal, I was further led to believe this assumption as the week’s exercises followed a similar fashion. Working as individuals, in pairs, with costume pieces, music provided by our sound designer Lucas Olscamp or props, we were asked to read the plays “La Casa De Bernada Alba”, “Yerma” and “Blood Wedding” and engaged in a variety of similar creation exercises. The material that was proposed began to isolate various themes that the cast seemed invested in addressing and Carlos himself had a keen eye and instinct for reacting to whatever was placed in front of him and magnifying its emotional impact, often through both intense directorial guidance and musical or sound composition. I thus found myself slowly urging myself to become bolder with my propositions in the following weeks, having seen my fellow actors propose treatments of the texts that allowed myself a deeper insight into Lorca’s plays and the potential ways in which it could resonate with our own context and setting, given the diverse range of nationalities, cultures, opinions and beliefs that comprised our cast. 

          The moment this process shifted for me was after our first week of rehearsals. We were presented with a finished script, completed by Carlos and his students from Chile, Koto Luer, Melivilu Díaz Tomás and Constanza Paz Leon Bello, and together took part in a joint reading of the proposed script. Although there were some minor cuts and changes to the proposed script, the final production for the most part, followed out both the structure and scenes selected from Lorca’s plays.  The main elements of the script were thus the conflict between Juan and Yerma over the latter’s desire for a child and the former’s refusal to provider her with one biologically. The tension between the bride and boy of “Blood Wedding” whereby the boy is attempting to convince the bride elope with him upon learning her impending marriage. Finally the conflict between the sisters themselves and the younger women with the older, specifically Adela and their mother Bernada, over the affection of Pepe Romano. The final production was thus a pastiche of the three source plays stated earlier, in which I believe some of the moments of greatest dramatic tension were isolated to be brought to life onstage.

          What followed in the process, in brief, is what I believe customarily takes place in the staging of a play. The script was read, roles were assigned to the actors, and the director, Carols, began the task of mounting scenes according to his vision. A single source of clarification is that multiple actors were assigned the same role. Four of use, Sebastian Grube, Alex Bagot, Alejandro Mora and myself were given the role of Juan. Ankita Sadarjoshi, Nathalie Kozak, Arianna Stucki and Viviana Kawas were given the role of Yerma. Gabor Gellai and Arthur De Oliveira were given the role of the boy of “Blood Wedding” and Noor Ali and Rita Akroush were given the role of the bride. The daughters of “La Casa de Bernada Alba” were played by Atoka Jo, Hennie Ward, Grace Huang and Vickie Critchlow. I isolate them as daughters as I am honestly unclear as to which was tasked with which role. Isabella Peralta played the part of Martirio and Marika Niko the part of Adela. Alexa Mena, Mathilda Mahne and Keira Simmons were an amalgamation of the characters Prudencia and Bernada, with Mathilda standing out as the leader of the three. Also worth mentioning at this point is Adam Toebel, who initially was cast as the boy of “Blood Wedding” alongside the aforementioned, however due to issues in the creation process, somewhat unresolved by the director himself, he was thus given the sole part of Victor of “Yerma.” While it is not productive to walk the path of self- guilt and shame, I do bear part of the responsibility for what took place with Adam. I injured my neck, once again, while at the gym, and was thus unable to attend rehearsal for roughly three weeks. During this time, Adam, out of his own volition, as he was neither forced nor required to do so but took it upon himself to do what he could to assist the development of the work, was acting as a “fill in” of sorts for me, as I recovered and made up my mind about continuitng with the project. During this time, due to the number of hours available each week to students for rehearsal, Adam was unable to work on scenes originally intended for him and as a result, when I did decide to return, found himself in a bit of a nebulous state. Carlos, for his own reasons unknown to me, did not attempt to remerge Adam into his original scenes or character with Isabella, but was left, for the most part, isolated and without work. 

          All of this is preamble to the what was ultimately the state of the production after the casting process took place. We as actors were called in during the week for work under Carlos’ directorship to mount the scenes selected. Carlos would approach the creation of these scenes by beginning with a warm-up designed to prepare for the intense emotional work to follow. I mention this as I believe this was his priority in the creation of the work. The text, the lights, the sounds, the actors themselves- all were vehicles designed to channel the emotional depth and impact of Lorca’s texts, without insight or critical thinking into the themes, or views of the cast themselves, or how they could potentially resonate with our own context. The aforementioned cast was all according to our biological sexed bodies. Despite one treatment by Sebastian Grube, in which he took on the task of working with the role of Prudencia, a move both intentional and possibly indicating a potential interest with engaging the text, Carlos took casting as a one to one approach in every sense. The men played men, the women played women. It is this initial casting move that I believe was part of the ultimate short-comings of the final production itself. For in this move, we began to see what would become a closed, one-sided approach to our investigation. Rather than opening up potential possibilities for an exploration of identity, gender or sexuality, the cast became a representation of the classic gender binary, in a manner that neither gave insight as to potential ways in which one could speak back and how it operates today to its existence nor offered possible modes of intervention or social critique. All of the themes and views of the production thus became completely dependent on Carlos’ vision and any effort to contradict, criticize, propose alternatives or question the nature of the development of scenes was met with pacification and an assurance that “we would get to that.” 

          Our “exploration” thus became a fairly straightforward process in its approach. Actors were brought in, having memorized their lines, and Carlos acting as director, working with the sound design, would stage the scenes in a manner that was purely intended to heighten its emotional impact. We were no longer collaborators attempting to investigate shared or even conflicting opinions on the questions laid out by the production, we were simply actors working to realize Carlos’ vision. All this is to say that the initial range of possibilities laid out in the beginning of our process was not directly reflected in the finished project, save as offering Carlos a means in which to assess our skills and ability as actors. It makes sense why the casting process took place directly after our period of creation work, as Carlos would likely have felt that he had a sufficient feel for the cast’s overall level of acting ability. And it is here that I believe was likely the most subtle and potentially most sinister pitfall of the production. Carlos was our director but he himself is also an actor. For Carlos, I believe that acting must have been his primary concern but just as important was the text itself. Carlos would often urge us to be “disrespectful” with the text but I firmly believe that it is the text itself that was of Carlos primary concern, particularly as to how it was reflected through the emotionality of the actor. Carlos would often go on to question what these texts meant today, but I think his ultimate concern was simply how the text could be incorporated by the actor to reveal some interior emotional view or standpoint. The actor’s body was a forum through which the text was brought to life and this was to be assisted by lights, sounds, costume and the stage itself. 

           Far from an analytical or critical lens, I believe that it is an emotional perspective of the text itself and how it could be revealed through the actor’s body onstage, through the use of the plastic elements of the theatre, that was to be Carlos’ primary concern. Carlos himself would often admit that our work could not exist without the other plastic elements of the theatre, lights, sound, costume, but I wonder if he thought that it could exist without us ourselves as actors or what our work could possibly look like when stripped of everything else. And it is here that I think has perhaps become one of my greatest frustrations with this process, for emotion for emotion sake, while valuable and meaningful, is empty, unproductive and an unfruitful endeavour where it is lacking in analytical or critical theory, framework, opinion or lens. By the end of the process, I found myself lacking in both investment, interest or passion for what I had “helped to create” but was nevertheless tasked with bringing to life on stage. It was a source of great frustration and displeasure for me personally to have to take part in continued rehearsals and the show itself as I felt some measure of shame from having allowed this production to turn out the way it had. While I do not believe that I bear sole responsibility for the overall project, that would be far too arrogant even for myself, I do think that I could have taken more opportunity as an actor, even if I could not change the structure of the scene itself, to make compelling choices in the moment of bringing the scene to life. An actor’s job, I have come to believe, using the Practical Aesthetics of the Atlantic Theatre Company, is “to live truthfully under the imagined circumstances of the play.” I failed at this job during the production as I felt and knew that what I was portraying onstage was a lie, a falsehood and ultimate deception of the audience. The production, from my own perspective as an actor was an outright manipulation of the audience’s emotions, carefully crafted through the sheer grandness and scale of the stage design itself, the intensity of the music and lights, all intended to enhance the emotional impact of our acting itself. The actor’s job, as outlined in “A Practical Handbook for the Actor” under the Practical Aesthetics method, is never to achieve or show an emotional state onstage but rather to pursue a specific objective or goal in the scene. Attempting to portray emotion, runs the risk of removing the actor’s awareness and responsivity to the scene itself and closes them in producing a single, unbelievable emotion. I do not state any of this as a critique of Carlos’ knowledge of acting or experience, merely as a reflection and articulation of what I felt like my experience of acting in this production onstage turned out to be. The moments I felt most alive in the scene were where I forgot about producing some grand emotion for the audience, as we were often pushed to do by Carlos, but simply chose to remain aware of whatever was taking place in the scene and to respond according to my impulses and partners. Carlos would, I must note, always indicate to us the importance of receiving everything given to us by our partners on stage. The difference for me would be that his greater concern was to simply ensure that whatever emotion was to be represented by the scene itself would be magnified and continued throughout the course of the scene. This was true for the majority of the production itself, save for the scene in which the four Yermas spoke directly to the audience about their misgivings towards their husbands and a gossip scene between the daughters and one of the matriarch figures. I believe that these moments were intended to operate as ‘breaths of fresh air’ if one could call it thus, and act as a means of preparation for the audience to receive and heighten the emotional impact of the subsequent scene. 

          This entire process of creating work was for my own part, far too closed off and narrow for my own tastes. I have come to realize that acting is both spoken of far too ephemerally and often conceived as the primary component of the theatre. Acting for me is a craft and like anything else, a single tool available to me as an artist. I would be curious what this production could have been without such emphasis on acting or emotion and would like for my own part to continue my development as an actor, not as simply as a means of producing emotion, but as a craftsmen capable of analyzing a scene, assessing what is taking place  and developing what an objective for myself to pursue as I play the scene. Remaining open to emotion and responding to my impulses are lessons I will continue to carry with myself as an actor but as important are the development of my ability to theorize critically engage with various modes of theatrical performance. It is these that I felt were not employed during this production process and which I have chosen to attempt to exercise now. I can appreciate that there is a place for scholarship and a place for creation in the midst of creating work, and that outright criticism over every creative choice rather than openness and grace is also an unproductive space. However, I do believe that when creating work, it is our responsibility as artists to bring our sense of truth and common sense to bear. Perhaps the move or response for us was not to simply shut down or object to Carlos’ directorial choices, but rather to propose different ways of portraying the scene that better revealed how we as artists were engaging with the text and the questions we wished to bring to bear onstage through a more critical lens. I am most frustrated by this process as my critical engagement with the texts of the play and the creation of the work itself were woefully lacking. Reconciling practice and theory, both in the making and theorizing of work is an important endeavour for myself as an artist and I intend to use this production as a first trial of sorts as to how not to approach making work in the future. I am not sure how I would have approached this production differently, perhaps we could have made more propositions on our own for Carlos to critique but I am not sure what impact this would truly have had on his vision. By the end, I remember someone asking when we would get into the topics and complexity as Carlos promised, to which our director responded, “oops...the theatre is like that.” I can appreciate that in any creative process, choices have to be made, and possibilities removed. However, I would hope that in future, when one frames the process, it is the responsibility of the lead artist to be as clear as possible as to what they wish to achieve, what they would like to request in concrete terms of all those present in the room on a day to day basis and to remain open to other artists as fellow collaborators rather than material for the creation of a piece. Furthermore, to allow the good sense and grace to for respond to all of the needs of the project on a holistic level, rather than simply addressing solely the concerns of the lead artist. These if anything are the most important lessons I will carry from this production and when I approach the creation of work in the future.

[simonsebastien]

Final Blog Comments from Deb- Cooking Oil, Room of Lost Names, Tehching Hiseh, Narcissister, Waiting For Godot

Dear Simon, The first paragraph of your Narcissister post was a beautiful reading of Butler’s essay – the inherent disciplinary structures of performativity and how a critical reading of what performativity “does” offers us, as embodied agents in the world, to recode those scripts.   In the second paragraph you take great care to call the masks or prostheses what they are and not what they represent – you look closely at the fact that she references stylizations of masculinity and feminity without reiterating those gender referencing implements directly onto a human body.  Race, and gender – they are all constructs that attach themselves to gestures, pigmentation, modes of speech, ways of expressing sexuality in order to limit the potential of the bodies who have learned those scripts or who materially present themselves in ways that make gender and race legible.  You accurately describe the Man/Woman performance and you seem to be making the point I wrote above.  But then you transition into your experience, the way you know yourself and your belief system.  Here it would be helpful to have a transition sentence that calls out your investment in reading this performance – and the ways in which it becomes provocative to you as you are embodied and feel yourself trapped in this system too.  Then the next statements make more sense – about the way in which you find yourself negatively reacting to the way the piece references porn (in its content) and also formally (more like the soft-core porn of  music videos since it, in a Brechtian manner is is more of a simulation). As to the influence of pornography – if we think with Butler, she is less interested in whether pornography has been a good or bad influence – the critical aspect of pornography is that it is a cultural form that is so pervasive, popular and watched repeatedly that the way in which sec is “done” and the stylings of the bodies who perform those acts deeply influence the way we think about sexuality, body image and gender.  We cannot shy away from the fact that porn changes notions of gender and that we imitate porn conventions when we express gender and sexuality.  So the first thing is that Narcissister has to call out all of these forms as cultural constructions – they are not necessarily “natural” to any human being but have become naturalized through repetition and the widespread circulation of this in our culture. And as you write, race is consolidated in that system as well – there is so much port where Black men have legendary prowess – and some of the scenarios renact violent racialized historical scripts.  So yes, the most effective critique is to reference what has been done, to become conscious of these acts AS SCRIPTS and then to disrupt the forms that allow the scripts to function – the male gaze, the naked and knowable female body.  What would make this a perfect post (its almost there) is to call out the disruptive element that go beyond critique – how she remains anonymous, masked, absents the bodies that are the material guarantee of the construct, and finds joy and pleasure in the public performance of providing herself  with sexual pleasure. Your Godot essay acknowledges the realities of your country’s political strife and setting it in a significant public square that is supposed to facilitate political speech already forces the spectators to read the production in relation to context.  I’m intrigued by the racial split among the pairs of characters – are you trying to make a statement about the dependency of the two factions or about their power imbalances?  As you say, you want to do both.  But how does the very nuanced interactions in the script do that work for you with those material bodies?  Again – I think you write your particular relationship to the complex politics of that place so well – what could be more helpful is to bring Godot (not just the general concept of the play) into more interaction with the analysis so that what you propose makes complete sense and not just a concept put “on” the play instead of something that might seem more organic to the script Beckett wrote. Your Cooking Oil response begins with a synopsis – not really an argument or observation.  To make your essay writing better, think about the idea or provocation you want to talk about and fold the synopsis into that – that way the essay doesn’t read as so schematic. Clearly you want to write about the notion of morality in a corrupt society.  So use that as a topic – and recount portions of the plot in relation to that topic.  Then you can argue the circumstances that show morality as contingent on the conditions of one’s world – not just a universal understanding of how one should act in any situation. The same goes with Room of Lost Names and its objective.  Put that up front, pull bits from your synopsis to explain the dilemma and then think about why, at this moment in time, this insistence on narrating oneself and one’s experience is essential for when and where the play is situated. Finally, there are a few things that are important to understand about Hsieh’s performance.  New York City doesn’t necessarily expel illegal migrants – much of the city’s infrastructure is supported by them. And yes, part of the system is that they do not become spectacular, for to call attention to themselves would mean to risk deportation. But they also serve a part in allowing the city to function – many work as childcare workers, in restaurant kitchens, in sweatshops.. etc.  And many are homeless – others walk by them every day but disregard them – the passersby no longer see them.  So if Hsieh is living like many others who are in his legal situation, but calling it art, he is using mimesis to think about shelter in a different way – that the city’s infrastructure provides the means to live, but not like enfranchised citizens.  But to frame it as art, as you point out makes the invisible, visible and to reframe the marginalized as humans.  He takes the time to do that because that experience of time is critical to our understanding of the situation.  You write your post well and you analysis is strong (just break up your longer paragraphs into shorter parts at the right breaks)>

[simonsebastien]

The Shipment

[simonsebastien]

Narcissister

         We are all embodied. But am I supposed to become someone based solely upon my materiality? On the colour of my skin or the sex of my body? Fuck that shit. Our material bodies bear meaning and there are certain racialized and gendered scripts that we are born into. But the identities assigned to us, based solely upon our materiality, are inherently constructed and inherently performative. As Judith Butler postulates in her essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” “the body is not a self- identical or merely factic materiality; it is a materiality that bears meaning, if nothing else, and the manner of this bearing is fundamentally dramatic....One is not simply a body, but, in some very key sense, one does one’s body and, indeed, one does one’s body differently from one’s contemporaries and from one’s embodied predecessors and successors as well” (Butler, 1988). The meaning given to our bodies ultimately operates through the actual, physical enacting of what a particular body is ‘supposed’ to signify according to one’s cultural context and situation.The meaning of our bodies is thus constructed through the repetition of specific, readable, scripted acts and these gain purchase over our lives as they become normalized and accepted as culture. Opposing or failing to conform to these acts or scripts results in expulsion or punishment.Our bodies are always raced and gendered regardless of our desire to self script in an effort to reclaim agency in the face of fixed cultural norms. However, developing an awareness of the ways in which one’s body is gendered and raced and how these scripts circulate and gain purchase in our lives, it is possible to reclaim some manner of agency and ownership of ourselves and our own material body. 

          Narcissister’s ‘Man and Woman,’ is a performance of both race and gender that both reenacts and disrupts the ways in which gendered performativity circulates through the popular imaginary. In the performance, Narcissister assumes the role of a male sexed body, in a room full of pornographic posters and magazines. Clothed in a jeans, a hat bearing the word ‘disrupt,’ a wig of disheveled hair and a white skinned chest prosthesis, Narcissister slowly awakens to the sound of heavy metal music and a room laden with empty bottles of alcohol. She, as a male white body, gradually begins to leaf through pornographic magazines, sticking a poster of a female sexed, black body, to which she begins forcefully pleasuring herself with a male penile prosthesis. After some time, Narcissister sheds the trappings of the male form and assumes the female sexed black body of the poster, laying out the coverings of the white male on the bed. She then begins to assume various stylized sexual positions with the shed male form, aggressively engaging in sexual activity. After some time, she ceases the act, indicating that the male form is unable to achieve either orgasm or satisfy the female body. Narcissister then encounters another image of herself in a pornographic magazine, to which she begins pleasuring herself, without the assistance of the male figure. 

         I do not like pornography. Before I continue, I think that I need to claim ownership of this position and explain my stance. Have I had a history with pornography? Yes. Has it positively influenced my sexuality or conception of race and gender? I would argue no. Pornography, as a form, is propagated from the standpoint of a male centric lens- the man is viewed as the subject to be pleasured by the female body, the object of desire, which is eroticized and stylized to a series of sexualized body parts. Similar to her performance, the female body becomes the object of desire, to be viewed and used as the male’s source of pleasure. The male body, white in this case, is usually sculpted, physically fit, strong and possessed of an eternal erection, capable of piercing the female body for an extended period of time. The music employed in Narcissister’s performance, usually accompanies pornographic films, as a counterpoint to the violence and aggressive acts that usually exist in the sexual encounter. The male body becomes an aggressor towards the female body, employing violences as a means of exercising male superiority and dominance over the submissive female body. Furthermore, the majority of male actors within the pornographic industry are white, heterosexuals. Black bodies, male and female, are exocticized and framed as sexual objects of desire, to be instructed and repressed by the white body. In the case of women, the black male body is viewed as animalistic, violent and a destroyer of feminine ‘delicacy.’ 

            Narcissister begins her performance by largely reenacting these performative acts associated with the male body in pornography, before disrupting the performance by assuming the position of a female body. The white, male body, now devoid of life and strength, becomes the object of female desire, incapable of either satisfying itself or the female body. The black female body then assumes her own position of power and agency, utilizing both an image of herself as well as the materiality of her body in order to pleasure herself. She concludes the performance by taking up the hat of the fallen male body, bearing the word ‘disrupt,’ an act that both references the form being disrupted, and proposes an alternative means of viewing this form in relation to specific gendered acts tied to certain sexualized and raced bodies. 

          Although Narcissister’s performance provides an alternative means of understanding the ways in which our bodies are governed by institutional structures in relation to gender and race, it is largely effective on an individual level. Regardless of the ways in which we view and understand ourselves in relation to questions of race and gender politics, our material bodies remain labelled and framed by the views of the wider society and culture through our acts. Agency for oneself does not naturally extend to a shift in the structures and systems that function through culture, nor does it extend to a wider understanding on a societal scale. Just as race and gender performativity gains purchase through its repeated reenactmant in performance, so too must intervention repeat itself in various forms and modes of performance in order to destabilize and shift the dominant discourse and social ordering. The first however, as shown by Narcissister, is to understand and develop a critical analysis as to the ways in which bodies are gendered, performed and propagated. An understanding of these components allows a reclamation of one’s agency as well as the understanding of the myriad of possibilities that constitute the material body, one that is not solely tied to historical or cultural convention, but wholly dependent on the individual realization and enactment of one’s body.

Works Cited:

Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988). JSTOR. Web.

[simonsebastien]

Waiting For Godot- De Trini Version?

          The two dominant racial groups of the country of Trinidad and Tobago, East Indians and Blacks, are typically associated with the nation’s two major political parties, known as the United National Congress, UNC, and the People’s National Movement, the PNM, respectively. The general, stereotypical belief associated to each racial grouping is that those of African descent are viewed as less educated, impoverished and of a lower social class while those of East Indian descent are believed to be wealthier, more gainfully employed and occupants of either the middle or higher socio- economic class. During our most recent government elections, the competitive forces between these two political parties resulted in heightened tensions between these two racial groups. Many adherents aligned to either political party were openly racist to others perceived to be loyal to the ‘enemy’ party in their day to day life. Furthermore, some representatives of each political party themselves were instrumental in creating racial division, through the use of discriminatory statements and racial slurs circulated through the various forms of the media. It is my belief that the staging of Beckett’s play, “Waiting For Godot,” during the months preceding our most recent government elections would potentially provide a means of political intervention during a time of racial and cultural division. 

           On de block. Vybze. Catch a vybze. Lime. Buss a lime. In the context of Trinidad and Tobago, these phrases are but a few of the ways in which the act of spending time together is referred. During the recent government elections, public spaces were perceived as areas of contestation and conflict as opposed to a shared space, as a result of the heightened racial tensions. My proposition for the staging of Beckett’s play would be within the capital city’s oldest public square, Woodford square. This square was originally used by the country’s first Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams, for lectures and classes, as well as served as a ‘speaker’s corner,’ where citizens would meet to discuss the day to day affairs of everyday life. Beckett’s play, in my view, aims to provide audiences of the theatre the opportunity to simply come together in order to spend time with one another and share in the experience of waiting. Actors are themselves representatives of a concept rather than signifiers of real people. For the purposes of this play, I would position Vladimir and Estragon as actors of East Indian and African descent respectively. The casting of Pozzo and Lucky would be slightly problematic, as one could argue that the perception associated with each racial group would result, and the unequal power dynamic between the two characters could result in furthering racial divisions. However, I believe that as important as providing a shared space for audience to spend time together, would be in the open acknowledging and recognizing of the existing racial relations. As a result, I believe that Pozzo and Lucky should also be cast as East Indian and Black respectively, in order to call out the political realities of the country. 

          The staging of Beckett’s play within Woodford Square allows a means of attempting to reformulate and rearticulate a community amidst an atmosphere of heightened racial relations. Essential to this goal would be the advertisement of this performance through the media, in order to provide a counterpoint to the dominant racist discourse circulating through the country. In addition, the staging of this play in a public space would be an event open to all citizens of the country, completely free of charge. Trinbagonians, as a people, are generally festive and predisposed to unruly, ‘wajang’ behaviour, often reflected during the Carnival celebrations. During this time, the perceived boundaries dividing citizens are removed for a more communal, unified experience, in which boundaries of class are removed and racial divisions are blurred.and citizens become . An atmosphere of Carnival- like music, such as Soca and Calypso, in my opinion, would offer a means of alleviating racial tensions, and reimagining the Woodford Square as shared space as opposed to an area of conflict. Beckett’s play provides a means of both recognizing existing racial tensions whilst providing a means of potentially bridging these divides. Beckett’s play would be an attempt in this regard to renegotiate racial relations and recreate a public both mutually invested in the political life of the country as well as their own individual desires. 

          One thing that I should acknowledge is my own relationship and context with Trinidad and Tobago. Currently I am studying at NYU in Abu Dhabi and as such, was not present in the country during the time of local elections. As such, the information upon which I have relied in framing this play comes from online media sources and accounts provided by my family into the status of the country’s daily life. To be frank, I think it is impossible for me to suggest framing this project in this context, as I was simply not there to live, or experience the situation of the country during that time period. Furthermore, my own engagement is largely through the lens of a citizen studying abroad and in many ignorant to the workings of daily life. In addition, the racial realities of Trinidad and Tobago is but one of the things with which I have long taken issue in terms of my own understanding of my culture. However, in attempting to reconcile my own position and views towards my country with the situation of its people, it is not enough to claim ownership over my position and situation. I may be Trinbagonian but I am also living abroad, studying at an American university in Abu Dhabi. Trinidad and Tobago is outside of my daily existence and as such, I am framing this proposal mainly through assumption and generalization. The staging of Beckett’s play feels, to me, slightly utopic and borders upon imperialist- I am imposing my newfound knowledge upon a country different to my present situation without a deeper understanding of the local context. This may be a retrospective proposition but I still believe that an ethical engagement with my home country during this time period depends upon my having at least come to a better understanding and recognition of the situation and view point of my country’s people. Perhaps, it would be better to attempt to stage Beckett’s play within a different context but I do believe that if nothing else, the staging of this play in the way I have suggested, could potentially provide a space of recognition for the audience. In viewing actors different races spending time together, solely for the sake of spending time, perhaps it would be possible for the diversity of the audience to suspend tensions and share in this simple act of waiting. But not waiting for waiting sake, I do not believe that it was this fruitless state to which Beckett conceived his play. Rather the act of waiting itself as being a hopeful and joyful experience. Racial divisions may not be healed in a day, but one can continue to hope and expect that such a day could happen, starting with simply assembling within a square in order to pass time together. 

Works Cited: 

Bradby, David. Beckett: Waiting for Godot. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

[simonsebastien]

Cooking Oil, Room of Lost Names

           Deborah Asiimwe’s ‘Cooking Oil’ deals with the implications of foreign aid upon small village communities within the context of Uganda. The play follows the story of Maria, a young woman seeking to obtain enough fund to pursue her education, through the sale of cooking oil, originally intended for the entire community. Her father, Bataka, is provided a supply of cooking oil, originally intended for the entire community, by his friend, Silver, a politician seeking to further his own authority and status through the control and sale of the village’s cooking oil. Maria is pressed into service by her father to sell cooking oil outside of the country’s borders, but chooses to sell within the village in order to obtain more funds for herself, as what she manages to sell across the border is either taken from her by her father for her brothers or the patrollers of the border itself. In order to persuade her cease competing with his own interests, Silver provides Maria with a large sum of cash, which she chooses to accept in order to add to her own finances. Just as Maria receives enough money to pay for her education, she is murdered and the community is left to reconcile her death and the loss of its resources meant for the betterment of all. 

          The play raises the question of morality within a society where corruption exists as a given. Although she is ultimately killed, Maria makes use of the corruption inherent to the society, where the vast majority of citizens are driven by greed, for her own benefit. One can argue that her motivations, though driven by seemingly selfish means, are in fact for the supposedly ethical goal of improving her social standing in seeking an education, a fact that highlights the paradoxical nature of characters driven by admirable goals employing amoral methods of achieving their aims. The presence of fate, portrayed by a figure in a helmet that follows Maria throughout the play until she is killed, also suggests the impossibility of one attempting to elevate their social standing, as she is killed just as she receives enough money to achieve her goal. The play acts as a critique for the vast amounts of foreign aid provided to African countries, many of which have not benefitted from the contributions of foreign nations. Furthermore, through characters such as Silver who manipulate the supply of cooking oil for their own ends, the play highlights the reality that the donation of foreign aid ultimately fuels systems of corruptions and poor governance due to a lack of regulation.

          Sitawa Namwalie’s ‘Room of Lost Names,’ follows the story of ‘M,’ a girl murdered in life that now finds herself in purgatory. M encounters the two gods, Gumali and Omuwanga, who do not permit her to leave purgatory as she is without her name, which was stripped from her upon her violent death. The play seeks to give voice to victims of violent crimes, specifically women, who despite their suffering, have remained voiceless and invisible, even in death. The play attempts to position the audience in relation to the character M, through Gumali, who possesses hyper- empathy and is able to simultaneously feel and assist M in the retelling of her death. The play questions what it means to give voice to silence and whether it is possible to do so through the theatre. Furthermore, the play reveals the ways in which women are positioned as objects of male authority within a patriarchal and are forced to exist and operate in accordance of the way of life and values prescribed by men. The play questions the positioning of the divine in relation to the mortal world and to what extent the presence, or lack thereof, of gods within the moral framework of everyday life are able to influence the lives of citizens in terms of their morality and principles. In some ways, the play positions the gods in a similar way to human, as fallible beings, capable of emotion and feeling, and equally constrained by the systems that operate and govern social life. The play reveals the need to claim one’s own agency and subject positioning within the world, rather than solely seeking restitution and aid from the realm of the divine.

[simonsebastien]

Tehching Hiseh- One Year Performance

                 Within the city of New York, Hiseh is marked as an illegal Chinese immigrant. Hiseh’s body is framed as ‘the other’ and his life throughout the performance takes place at the edges and margins of the city.  Though marked in his body, Hiseh in his attire, at least attempts to remain hidden- his clothing is unremarkable and ordinary, a fact that does not call further attention to himself in some ways, in addition to his material body. The fact that he has taken on the city of New York as his home is irrelevant to the authorities of the state- Hiseh is the foreigner that must be found and expelled in order to safeguard and protect the interests of the state from outsider. Hiseh must do his best to remain invisible or else face expulsion. Even when he is confronted by the state’s police authority when assaulted, Hiseh is framed as the outsider, whose word is initially distrusted over his aggressor. The state exercises his power over his body and he is forced inside to answer to the social powers that be before the intervention of his legal attorney. In relation to the powers of the state, Hiseh is placed within an uneven power dynamic, unable to speak back and defend his position, without the assistance of an institution that also exists within the powers of the state’s legal system. Hiseh’s body reveals ways in which those at the margins are forced to comport themselves within the city so as to conform to the standards of the state and its authority- those at the margins must remain unseen, unmarked so as to go unobserved by the authority of the city and remain objects of the city’s ‘true’ inhabitants. 

          Hiseh’s fluidity throughout the city of New York furthermore helps to highlight the ways in which bodies at the edges of society circulate throughout the city. Hiseh never never remains in one location for an extended period of time;  he drifts between the city’s public spaces and institutions, sleeping in either open, isolated spaces, such as empty lots or parking lots, or in the areas between the city’s establishments, such as alleys. Hiseh’s body reveals the precariousness of those living at the edges, whose lives are in a constant state of flux, and never fully solidified or defined within the city spaces. Furthermore, he reveals the ways in which those marked as the minority are able to survive by relying on each others at least temporarily. Hiseh’ places himself constantly at risk when going to sleep, as he assumes that his body, in also existing as one on the outside, will remain untouched by others at the margins. He shows how in some ways, there is a small, if temporary sense of community to be found on the outskirts, in purchasing clothing and food from street vendors, or even allowing himself to share a fire with another living on the margins. The warmth of the fire, also reveals the importance of the passage of time within this performance. Over the course of a year, the weather within the city, as Hiseh’s body, in constant motion. During the colder months, although having additional layers of clothing, as well as a sleeping bag, Hiseh places his body at the mercy of the elements and in some ways becomes dependent on others who also exist at the margins. 

          The power of art is in making the invisible visible. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s writings help to understand the ways in which Hiseh’s performance function within the city spaces of the state. The documenting of an simultaneously unmarked, invisible other, also marked as an outsider allows those voices that remain at the margins a means of speaking back and affirming their existence. Hiseh provides those lives placed away from the center a means of speaking back to the center and authoring their own lives and positioning within the city. Hiseh provides the silenced minorities a voice with which they can begin to speak back and identify their positioning within the city’s establishment, rather than remaining objects of the state’s authority. Part of me wishes to question whether this performance can in fact achieve such a goal given that it is driven by the fact that Hiseh himself remains largely unnoticed to the general publci. in One can argue that those lives placed at the margins are unable to identify Hiseh as on of their own attempting to provide a means of speaking back to the center, given that his performance itself remains, for the most part invisible. The nature of performance art is in the encounter, and Hiseh’s interactions with the city’s inhabitants forces a negotiation to be reckoned with those on the outskirts. Be they the powers of the state recognizing and respecting the process of his artistic work in suspending the legal proceedings, or the sharing of a fire with another isolated at the margins, the totality of Hiseh’s performance allows a reauthoring of the ways in which bodies marked as outsiders are able to exist within the city’s limits. In circulating the performance, Hiseh shifts his performance onto an even larger scale, in allowing those stories and voices that have been silenced a greater means of circulating within the world. Although the voices revealed through Hiseh’s performance may exist outside of our context and situation, in observing and recognition one can begin to reorganize the prescribed ways of being articulated by the state within our own context and situation. For my own part, those at the margins within my own city have become a voice to be negated and rejected, as well as a symbol of societal failures, incapable of conforming to the standards and ideals of the nation. I may never be able to fully understand or their situation but I believe that is not what is proposed by Hiseh through his performance. The task is not to simply attempting to ‘save’ these lives or intervene into their supposed misery. To do so further reinforces their positioning as objects to be pitied and guided within the framing of the city. Rather I believe it is more important to begin to at least recognize those at the margins as fellows subjects, capable of agency, rather than pariahs to be exiled and expelled from the group. In doing so, one can at least begin to recognize the voices of those in between and at the very least, take the time to listen to them as they speak back and define their own existence and situation.

[simonsebastien]

Deb’s Comments, Chekhov, Pehlwani, Stacy Wolf

Dear Simon,

I read your last three blog posts with great interest, and instead of

responding to them separately, they seem to be completely entwined,

in the questions that they either consciously or unconsciously elicit.

So the first thing that immediately comes to mind when I read them

against and with one another is how could you think about using Stacy

Wolf’s technique – reading gendered codes, spectatorial desire and

indentification to understand your place as the spectator of the

pehlwani event – where you are far more easily assimilated precisely

because of the way in which you are visually read as racialized,

sexualized and gendered?  How is it that you could “blend in” and not

be so conscious of the gendered privilege of the event, and also of

the way in which class structures become apparent (or less so to you

because of socioeconomic privileges that your childhood and university

confer to you).  Why are those less pressing and the thrill of the

sport foregrounded for you?

In fact, if you consider what you are a slave to, the pehlwani and the

Wolf responses suggest that it may be the privileges you are afforded

rather than the oppressions that you experience that make life more

difficult – even when you want to grapple with understanding them

(especially when your impulse is to “do” something about them).  It

may be that the best doing is conceding to others perspectives, to

practice radical empathy by just allowing yourself to be exposed to

their point of view without having to defend your defenses.  Wolf in

particular shows us how minoritized sexual figures understand how to

find modes of identification in powerful and dominant forms – the

resistance becomes more powerful because one has to reorient oneself

through a perspectival shift and the allowance for the experience of

the other as a kind of truth.

And I love that your Vanya response was about Chekhov’s radical

innovation – that he, even more complexly than Shakespeare, did away

with an archetype, that humans are in formation, and, in relation to

one another, occasionally brave, petty, lustful, melancholy and

generous – but most importantly they are not those things alone – it

is the quality of the circumstances and the others around them that

bring out the measure and mixture of those qualities.  For Chekhov,

that study in relation to the forces of history – is enough.  You

observe that well – my guess is that there is much more to say about

that for you.

[simonsebastien]

Adrian Piper- Reflections: A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys

           I am an exhibitionist- half a life time of training your body to compete in a sport that requires you to dress in nothing more than a small cap and swimming trunks invariably induces a desire to be seen and to be viewed and also, to some degree, to be objectified. Initially, the opportunity to display words upon my forehead, to be marked for the sole purpose of being seen, in my view, order to be seen (FOR A CLASS no less) was an opportunity I knew that I eagerly accepted. What followed then was a brief, and ongoing engagement with the work created by Adrian Piper, Everything #10. 

           In this piece, participants display the phrase “Everything will be taken away,” written in reverse upon their foreheads in henna, for a period of one to two weeks until the phrase disappears. Participants maintain a journal during this time period, and reread these one year after the performance has ended. I am currently on day three and in some ways,  I suppose that I am cheating. First of all, the henna that we, myself and another classmate who also decided to take part in this work, was defective, and disappeared after we both went to sleep that night. After deliberating for several days, we eventually decided to make use of a permanent marker and reapply the phrase each morning. The phrase has disappeared from my face twice after I have taken a shower and I suppose that I am defeating the purpose of the performance in that I can choose to stop at any time during this period. My continued participation is wholly contingent in my choosing to rewrite it the next day. As I write this post my forehead is unmarked. Secondly, although I technically drew inspiration from Adrian Piper to enact this performance, I suppose that technically I am not enacting it? I made the decision to rewrite the phrase “A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys,” as opposed to the phrase provided by Piper. My choice in this regard was that, similar to a tattoo, I wanted to mark my own body, my own skin, with a phrase of my own choosing, one that I believed could speak to me and my own situation and be meaningful to me, (the phrase is taken from the video- game Bioshock, which takes place dystopian imagining of a underwater metropolis based upon the philosophy of Ayn Rand).

         The two days in which I walked around with this phrase upon my head were both exhilarating and terrifying. Extremely conscious of the fact that there was a phrase upon my foreheadI felt myself performing a certain being of myself. I spoke louder, I answered sharply and I was extremely defensive of my forehead. Each time that I was approached and questioned, I either attempted to simply laugh it off, or reacted aggressively towards the questions. At the same time, I was also eager to respond to questions and anticipated the questioning as to why I had this phrase written on my forehead and what it said. In some cases, there were moments in which I was able to engage in meaningful discussion about issues specifically related to race and the impact of video games upon adolescents, in others I simply pretended that they were ignorant or small- minded and would not be able to appreciate ‘the finer complexities of art.’  

          As the days wore on, I found myself becoming anxious and afraid. I eventually settled upon quickly explaining that the marking was for a theatre class, in order to divert attention away from myself. I suppose that after a while the phrases and comments began to affect me differently. No longer was I proud to be seen as an object of display but I found myself wanting to withdraw, to disappear and retreat deep inside myself. 

“That’s weird.”

“You’re so deep.”

“Oh, Interesting.”

Each time I perceived a negative reaction to the text on my face, my heart sank and I wondered why I had chosen to write this in the first place. Although I am an exhibitionist, I am also extremely self- conscious and in many cases, I do not wish to be seen. I wondered why this phrase was upon my face and berated myself for singling my body out to be viewed.

          Reflecting upon the words in the mirror, and recording my thoughts, in some ways helped me to reapply the words the next day. “A man chooses, a slave obeys.” Hadn’t I chosen to mark myself in this way? What was I a slave of? I suppose that it is too early to tell and perhaps the continuance of this performance will allow for a deeper insight. 

[simonsebastien]

Struggling With A Problem Like Maria- Stacy Wolf

          I am not a fan of musical theatre; I have never seen “The Sound of Music,” and I have never, nor do I desire to participate in the staging and performance of a musical. I am also a black, male- identifying, heterosexual man, with a very basic understanding of queer theory and feminist critique. Having said that, it is even more important that I wrestle with ‘A Problem Like Maria.’ Since coming to NYU Abu Dhabi, I have encountered a wide range of views in relation to gender and sexuality making it somewhat impossible for me to simply adopt a passive, ‘objective’ stance as an outsider. Although it is difficult for me to ever fully ‘understand’ their various situations and ways of being, as well as inappropriate to begin from the premise in believing that my actions are needed or to ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ a ‘problem,’ reckoning and seeking to understand these realities in my life is in fact an action that I can take. As Ngũgĩ  asserts in his theory of globalectics, a system of exchange between individuals recognizes that each adopts a central position as subject in relation to others, as well as embraces ‘wholeness, interconnectedness, equality of potentiality of parts, tension and motion,’ between subjects (P. 8, wa Thiong’o). I embrace my subject position, recognize the alternative way of viewing the musical proposed by Wolf and will do my best to reckon with ‘A Problem Like Maria.’ 

          My position to musical theatre is complicated by the fact, as I stated earlier, that I do not enjoy musicals. Rather I no longer enjoy the musical form itself having gained a deeper awareness as to the kinds of messages and views that they can communicate, given the power and potency of the form. Musicals, as a form, are highly popular, highly entertaining, highly affective and highly political; the musical is in fact the ultimate expression of Bertold’s Brecht’s conception of epic theatre, “The psychological realism of the dialogue and the celebratory energy of the musical numbers, create a tension that allows the musical to grapple with social problems and issues that apparently reconcile them into a community celebration of music and dance,” (P. 22, Wolf). The musical then is able to deal and relay messages, highly political in nature in that musicals are able to translate various kinds of beliefs and views about race, gender and sexuality, in a manner that is both instructive and entertaining. My issue with the musical is the fact that, although audiences are always fully aware of the fact that they are in fact watching a musical, given the separation of dialogue and song by the characters, as a form it is still able to subvert, impose and reinforce specific ideas and beliefs in terms of race, gender and sexuality upon an audience, that at least for myself, can remain largely invisible for a long period of time. My question thus becomes- what kinds of interventions are possible within the form of the musical, which has over the years, in many cases though this cannot be stated for all musicals, reinforced specific ideas about race gender and sexuality, as in the case of ‘The Sound of Music.’

          Wolf’s proposed spectator of the musical offers a means of reclaiming the agency of the audience, in terms of renegotiating the kinds of ideals and beliefs offered by the musical. The viewing of the musical through a lesbian, feminist woman perspective, provides a means of speaking back to the structures and ideas imposed within the form of the musical; it allows for a rereading, a reorganizing and a redefining of the individual in terms reclaiming a position as subject in reading the kinds of messages and ideas encoded within the form. 

“This kind of reading, is to some extent, invited by the song, since, to be literal, it is not Maria herself who is the problem; rather, she is compared to a problem that the nuns must solve: “How do you solve a problem ‘like’ Maria?” The relationship between Maria and “the problem” is one of metaphor and approximation, not unlike this author’s search for lesbians in musicals. And the fact that there is ‘a’ problem ‘like’ Maria- rather than, say, ‘the’ problem that ‘is’ Maria- suggests that there could be similar “problems” elsewhere. This problem has the possibility of multiplying, much like the contagious pleasure of finding lesbians in musicals once we begin to look at and hear musicals differently. The challenge is to determine how lesbians appear where none officially exist,” (P. 6, Wolf).

What other kinds of ‘problems’ can one derive from the musical? The asking of these questions, as adopted by Wolf allows a means of intervening into the kinds of social relations and gender, race, sexual relations propagated by the musical form itself. As a form, musicals are extremely powerful- as a child I grew up believing that the ideal man was white, male- identifying, authoritative and it was his responsibility to ‘discipline’ and ‘instruct’ the woman who was placed as ‘inferior.’ For many years I believed that I did not live up to that ideal of maleness, as I was shy, soft- spoken and self- conscious, and I can point concretely to the source of this misinformed belief- the musical cartoons of Disney, such as Hercules, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella, to name a few. How then can one begin to speak back against these kinds of ideas and beliefs? By asking what other kinds of ways can the form be read. What does a black, Caribbean, male lens of rereading the musical offer? What kinds of messages and views do they translate? What are the problems that allow myself, as a self- stated non- fan of the musical, to also derive pleasure and identification with the musical form. In asking these questions I hope to begin to solve how I for myself can begin to understand and recognize my “Problem Like Maria.”

Works Cited:  

Thiongʼo, Ngũgĩ Wa. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia UP, 2012. Print.

Wolf, Stacy Ellen. A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2002. Print.

[simonsebastien]

Pehlwani- Community Building

          We begin in the round. Enclosed on all sides, separated by a sea of strangers, isolated in pairs or small groups. In the center, two men water the ground, defining a smaller circle at the heart of the circle of our bodies. The remains of the previous circle still mark the sands, likely from last week’s wrestling matches. I feel myself being silently observed. No on directly addresses or acknowledges my presence; they simply look at me, seeing me, before resuming their conversation. Slowly, the circle fills in and after some time, a third, older man enters the circle, bearing a painted staff. He walks around the center ring, conversing with the other two men. During this time, men, seemingly at random, in pairs and individually, begin to leave the surrounding outer circle, entering the space between the spectators and the center ring, the area likely defined as the center of the event. They jump and gesture viciously, insistently shouting with conviction and jumping lightly in place. The men then each approach the center, and in various combinations, touch the sand, and then touch their eyes, their ears, their faces or their chests several times. Then, they touch the feet or acknowledge the men in the center, affording respect to the space and those whose role associates them with a sense of authority.The actions confuse me but I feel as if I understand some of it. The space at the center has been marked, afforded a sense of importance. After some time of watching men repeat this ritual, the crowd silences. The older man, the one I assume to be the officiator of the events to come shouts out to the surrounding crowd; the crowd responds with their own unified chant. Flustered, I shout out some vague utterance. The call is repeated, the crowd responds. Twice. Three times. Each time I am lost. Finally, there is applause, at last an action I can understand and contribute with a sense of conviction. 

          On the outskirts, just inside the ring of spectators, men begin to wrap their groins with length of cloth. They change openly before all, men and women unconcerned, unashamed. Over these sashes of cloth, they place what to me, appears similar to swimming trunks. Slowly, one by one, those who have changed reenter the central space, and begin to walk or jog lightly around the central ring, awaiting an opponent. After some time, while several men circle the ring, the officiator calls to the audience once more who responds with a collective chant. I still feel myself confused. At last, a man approaches the center ring and another enters opposite him. The officiator grasps the hands of each man and raises them, and I can only assume introducing them to the audience. The men separate and each collects sand in his hands and rubs it on his body. They then each place sand on the other. The officiator once more calls out to the crowd who responds. I can feel the crowd leaning in with anticipation of the first match. I am enclosed on all sides. My body pressed around, struggling to remember its place and itself. But here I am not myself. Here I am a stranger, a foreigner, an outsider. I can only mimic the actions of those around me, those who know the terms and rules of the event. The crowd calls out once more and the match begins. 

          The wrestlers crouch low and slowly begin to probe, clasping hands and testing the weight of the other. What follows in each match is a game, a dance. Each man attempts to unbalance the other. Grabbing low, arms, shoulders, feet- anything to overpower their opponent to the ground. All of the action takes place within the central ring. When pushed out, the other of the two men, the one I assume to be the referee, parts the fighters and leads them to the center once more where they resume their struggle. Sometimes, one is pressed to the ground on his stomach and remains there for an extended period of time as the man with the advantage attempts to flip him onto his back. During this time, the officiator calls to the crowd, I presume taunting or insulting the fighters. A wave of violence emerges, and occasionally, the wrestlers tumble into the crowd. The boundaries are fluid, passing from outside towards the center, from the center to the outside. Finally, in what seems to last a split second, one takes the advantage and is able to flip their opponent onto his back. The crowd roars. The winner is sometimes lifted by another, a friend who approaches from the outside. He then circles the inside of the line of audience members, who give money. Was the matches being betted upon? Or is the money a recognition for the skill and ability of the winner? Sometimes, the winner collects a sizable amount from the audience, in other cases, he receives a pittance. Men that are heftier in size seem to be given more respect. When two males, lean and bony entered the ring to wrestle, the men near to me point towards them and laugh. As the winner of the match approached to receive his winnings, they again laughed this time to his face. The matches proceed in this fashion and just as abruptly as they began, they are ended.

          As we depart, I feel myself being observed more openly but now as more of an object. The audience, as well as participants, stop us to take pictures. They are especially fond of the women who are fair skinned and blond, taking pictures after advancing a few steps. I cannot help but laugh. The power relations have been flipped. We came to see them but now they see us, they mark us, they define us as objects, outside of the community and the group to be observed and recorded. The wrestling is over but now we are the performers and they the audience. As we depart, a man asks me where I am from. I tell him the West Indies, knowing that they likely will not know where Trinidad and Tobago is located. He smiles and gestures as if swinging a cricket bat. I smile and nod enthusiastically to him. We do not understand one another but we are able to make some small connection, create some small sense of exchange. We do not depart as simple observers, outsiders to a ‘cultural event,’ but rather having found some way, no matter how small to engage with a community outside of our own.